Male whinny calls outside burrow

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Figure 1. Distribution of the Parakeet Auklet in North America.

Adult Parakeet Auklet

This beautiful seabird has a doll-like face with stunning white irides, monotonous Whinneying calls, and unusual feeding apparatus and habits. Parakeet Auklets have the widest range of any of the Alaskan auklets, spanning the northern Gulf of Alaska, most of the Bering Sea, the north Pacific south of the Aleutian Islands, and the Sea of Okhotsk in Siberia. Their preferred breeding sites are in crevices along rocky cliff faces, although small breeding colonies may be located on rocky beaches, talus slopes, lava extrusions, and even grassy slopes with scattered boulders. This species is less gregarious and in most areas less abundant than sympatric Least (Aethia pusilla) and Crested (A. cristatella) auklets, and is never observed in large flocks at breeding colonies or at sea. Like other auklets, this species is socially monogamous, with conspicuous vocal and visual courtship displays at its breeding colonies; both sexes display similar ornamental facial plumes. The Parakeet Auklet formerly was placed in a monotypic genus, Cyclorrhynchus, which name refers to the nearly circular profile of the bill. The unusual shape of the bill is amplified by the strongly convex shape of the cutting edge of the upper mandible and the sharply upcurved lower mandible—a bill probably specialized for foraging on gelatinous zooplankton (jellyfish and ctenophores) and crustaceans (e.g., hyperiid amphipods) that live among jellyfish tentacles. Parakeet Auklets' habit of ingesting plastic pellets and other plastic particles at sea has been the subject of concern, although there is no evidence of this habit causing any harm. There is concern about ongoing and potential effects of rat predation on adults, eggs, and nestlings. Studies of Parakeet Auklet breeding biology by Sealy and Bédard (
Sealy, S. G. and J. Bédard. 1973. Breeding biology of the Parakeet Auklet Cyclorrhynchus psittacula on St. Lawrence Island, Alaska. Astarte no. 6:59-68.
Sealy and Bédard 1973) at St. Lawrence I., Alaska, and by Hipfner and Byrd (
Hipfner, J. M. and G. V. Byrd. 1993. Breeding biology of the Parakeet Auklet compared to other crevice nesting species at Buldir Island, Alaska. Colon. Waterbirds no. 16:128-138.
Hipfner and Byrd 1993) at Buldir I., Alaska, provided baseline knowledge of this species' habitat selection, reproductive phenology, and chick development. Research by Harrison (
Harrison, N. M. 1990b. Gelatinous zooplankton in the diet of the Parakeet Auklet: comparisons with other alcids. Stud. Avian Biol. no. 14:114-124.
Harrison 1990b) and George Hunt's team (Hunt et al.
Hunt, Jr., G. L., B. Burgeson and G. A. Sanger. 1981b. "Feeding ecology of seabirds in the eastern Bering Sea." In The eastern Bering Sea shelf: oceanography and resources, edited by D. W. Hood and J. A. Calder, 629-648. Seattle: Univ. of Washington Press.
Hunt et al. 1981b,
Hunt, G. L., N. M. Harrison and J. F. Piatt. 1993a. Diets and the selection of foraging habitat by planktivorous auklets in the Bering Sea. Paper read at Status and conservation of seabirds in the North Pacific, at Victoria, BC.
Hunt et al. 1993a,
Hunt, Jr., G. L., R. W. Russell, K. O. Coyle and T. Weingartner. 1998. Comparative foraging ecology of planktivorous auklets in relation to ocean physics and prey availability. Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser. no. 167:241-259.
Hunt et al. 1998) has provided information on the species' biology during summer at sea.